Market snapshot
Equities at records. The Dow closed at 52,319 points, a second record close in a row. The Nasdaq rose 1.52 percent to 26,214 and the S&P 500 0.79 percent to 7,449. The second quarter ended with the best performance for the main US indices since the pandemic year of 2020.
Bitcoin on the other side. BTC fell below $58,000, its first drop under the $60,000 line since 2024. It lost more than 20 percent over June and is down 34 percent across 2026. The reasons converge on one point: hot May inflation, outflows from exchange traded funds, and the turn at Strategy.
Oil falls in wartime. WTI is around $70 and Brent around $72. Brent is down 20 percent over June and 23 percent over the quarter. The Strait of Hormuz has been blocked since February 28, but tankers are pulling out and the United States and Iran are resuming talks in Doha. The market is pricing peace rather than shortage.
Gold holds. $4,062 an ounce, up 0.58 percent. When equities and crypto split in opposite directions, the metal stays calm.
Lithuania and the Baltics
A cabinet reshuffle. Prime Minister Sinkevičius is replacing the culture minister. There is no named successor yet, but it is a signal about tension inside the coalition.
The minimum wage rises. The government approved an 8 percent increase to 1,245 euros for next year. For the real economy that is a cost line, for the worker it is a question of purchasing power against rising prices.
Defence in the foreground. The commander of US naval forces in Europe visited the defence staff and discussed the Hormuz operation. Conservatives in the Seimas are registering a resolution on layered air defence. Central and western Lithuania will get 275 new public warning sirens.
The port of Klaipėda. Development of the southern section has drawn interest from 14 international investors. In Ignalina the Westinghouse consortium won a 32 million euro contract to dismantle steam generators.
Europe
Belarus released prisoners. Lukashenko’s administration reported the release of 28 political prisoners. A gesture against the background of talks, not a change of position.
An activist disappeared near the border. The Polish campaigner Kaja Kojder-Demska went missing close to the Belarusian and Polish line. In Germany a shooting incident left six wounded.
Ukraine
The front is deadlocked. The Pokrovsk sector remains bitterly contested, and Russia is advancing slowly and expensively. Turning tactical gains into an operational breakthrough is becoming harder.
Putin hints at talks. The signal arrives as the Russian economy creaks and people move out of the cities. Moscow’s conditions have not changed: denazification and a demand for a legitimate signatory.
Kellogg shifts the burden. Trump’s envoy said Europe should take the initiative on Ukraine from the United States. Russia meanwhile is importing petrol from India, because Ukrainian drone attacks are cutting into refining capacity.
Geopolitics
The Hormuz paradox. The strait has been blocked since February, and about 25 percent of seaborne oil used to pass through it. But oil is falling, not rising. Tankers are leaving the zone, the Doha talks are moving, and the market fears slowing demand more than a supply shock.
OPEC+ is crumbling. The United Arab Emirates left the cartel in May. Iraq threatens the same unless it gets a bigger quota. A cartel that no longer controls its members is no longer a cartel.
China and Russia move closer. Secret top-level military exercises between Moscow and Beijing. China passed an ethnic unity law that the international community is criticising. Xi promised anti-corruption work and a stronger army.
Central banks
Warsh holds his position. Fed chair Kevin Warsh spoke at the ECB forum in Sintra, refused any signal on the July meeting, but repeated that inflation and prices are too high. The market is beginning to price a scenario in which the Fed’s next move is a hike rather than a cut.
The ECB waits. Most economists expect the ECB to stay put through all of 2026. Lagarde calls policy in a good place. The gap between a hawkish Fed and a waiting ECB is widening.
IPO radar
Anthropic in front. The Series H round gathered $65 billion at a valuation of $965 billion. For the first time it passed OpenAI at $852 billion. Databricks is holding at $134 billion.
SpaceX is already listed. After the merger with xAI, the company has traded publicly since June 12 at a valuation of about $1.75 trillion. The flow of private AI capital has not stopped, even as crypto falls.
What to watch tomorrow
The Sintra forum continues. Remarks from Warsh and Lagarde. Any hint about the July or September path will move bonds.
The United States and Iran in Doha. Whether tankers start returning to Hormuz. Every ship pushes oil lower.
BTC near $58,000. Whether the line holds after the quarter-end selling, or the next wave down begins.
The US labour market. A week of jobs data, and after hot personal consumption expenditures inflation every number will recalibrate expectations for the Fed.
The culture minister. Who takes the seat after Sinkevičius’s decision.
Meška’s comment
Equities at records, crypto down 34 percent, the Fed thinking about a hike. A recovery? No, this is a divergence. When the indices celebrate their best quarter since 2020 while Bitcoin falls to a two-year low, those are not two separate stories. It is one liquidity cycle running at two speeds. Crypto always feels the marginal buyer first, and that buyer disappears the second the central bank’s next option is a hike rather than a cut.
The oil story works on the same logic from the other side. War closes Hormuz and the price falls, because the market fears a slowdown rather than a shortage. A supply shock nobody buys is a demand signal wearing geopolitics as a mask. Warsh says nothing, and the silence is precisely the message. When a central bank stops promising money, the cycle starts counting who borrowed on the assumption that it would never run out.